Where once a town, Prairie Grows Again.

Out in the wet, boggy prairies of Grand Forks County, where wagons ventured at their peril, a town was born in 1880. Initially named Stickney, after a railroad man by the same name, its residents soon changed its name to something less evocative of the miring mud for which it was notorious. And so a year later, the territorial legislature made it official by decreeing that Stickney should become Ojata, which, according to local lore at the time, was Lakota for "crossing".

Though Ojata is only a name today, it was once a genuine town with aspirations of becoming the county seat. Among its amenities were two hotels, eight saloons and a pair of grain elevators. The "Galloping Goose" of the Great Northern Rail Way offered rail trips to Grand Forks for 25 cents, though hobos sometimes hitched a free ride atop the freight cars. Ojata's population once reached 250, but it was a town without a future, and so its post office and store closed for good in 1936. By 1951, Ojata disappeared from the maps altogether. It's been said that the entire townsite was once traded for a good horse.

Most of the farmsteads disappeared, as well, for reasons still in the soil. Early settlers learned - through arduous years of trying - that the soil here was too salty to grow the blue-ribbon wheat that is a Red River Valley hallmark. Over the years, some lands plowed for crops returned to grass. Other quarter sections were never broken and so native prairie remains. Today, a few farmers run cattle or cut hay on some of the remaining grasslands.

After 125 years of trial and error, we've learned that the highest and best use of these remaining Grand Forks County grasslands is a very simple one: a prairie preserve for the Red River Valley. Grand Forks County Prairie Partners envision a place where buffalo and cattle continue to graze, because ungulates have always been a vital piece of the prairie's ecology. It's a place where a prairie chicken hunting tradition has been revived. Above all, this is where we can step into the prairie and see for ourselves where the great herds of buffalo roamed. In this way, the prairie will continue to be a place that evokes stories that last for generations.